Claim's Cabbies Corner. Kill crazy rampage imminent.

Talk about your cars etc here. Keep it sort of sensible and on topic please.
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Re: Claim's Cabbies Corner. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Post by LynehamHerc »

I suppose a small caravan is bigger than most of their houses as well.
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Re: Claim's Cabbies Corner. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Post by TADTS »

Another vote here for keeping the HighandDry.

What's the maximum age of vehicle allowed? I only ask as the ban on ICE vehicles isn't that far away. You probably have an ever closing window in which you can run a hybrid or full fat diesel.



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Re: Claim's Cabbies Corner. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Post by DodgeRover »

AutoshiteBoy wrote: Thu Jul 22, 2021 2:01 pm The Japanese just don't 'get' towing, so something like a Lexus will not really be considered a tow car by the Japanese.
Our RX300 was plated to something daft GTW 5t maybe?
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Re: Claim's Cabbies Corner. MY FIRST SATURDAY NIGHT

Post by Warren t claim »

Reading the following news story this week has brought back some memories of my first ever Saturday night shift.

https://www.dailyadvent.com/gb/news/1e0 ... ng-on-road

I was driving along this stretch of road...
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... at about 2am when I saw what I thought was some dumped clothes in the middle of the road. I was just going to run over them but decided against it on the chance that there was something concealed under them that may give me a puncture. It wasn't until I was swerving around the obstacle that I noticed that it was an unconscious human being sprawled out on the road after getting a severe beating from, what I assume, the two lads walking away. I shudder at how close I was to killing someone!

Earlier on that shift I got a job to pick up at Birkenhead North station, a station located in the worst area on our patch. Here it is below...
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In my newbie innocence, I didn't understand that I was driving into an ambush set up by the local tiprat scum! I obediently turned into Station Rd only to be greeted by the sight of maybe ten teenage track suit trash locals poised to hurl rocks at me! Shit! By sheer fucking luck a British Transport police BMW E36 318d follows me around the corner. The local scum see the train plod and run away! I can't believe I was so lucky. Maybe if my poor 405 had have been bricked I'd have quit and never driven a taxi again?
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Re: Claim's Cabbies Corner. MY FIRST SATURDAY NIGHT

Post by Guest »

Regarding the pile of rags in the road. A good few years ago I had a phonecall late one evening to be International Rescue. A car destroying mate had kettled his Rover. I went out with my Discovery and a rope to tow him home. (He is an idiot and not someone I would want to drag along on a rope again, well not in a car, anyway)

By the time we were on the way back, we were travelling down the main road on a one street valleys town. Like you there was a pile of rags in the road, which as I got closer realised was a person. I stopped, put hazards on and got out.
Turns out that the poor bugger had had a row with his missus. She had left the nearby pub, he chased after her, fell in the road and had been run over by someone who didn't stop.
We called an ambulance, luckily my mate was a former army medic and took care of the casualty, stopping the half pissed people who, by now, had come out of the pub to gawp from moving him.
I tried to direct traffic, without much success as, at that time of night people seemed more intent on shoving their way through than making allowances for a body in the road.
The ambulance turned up, with a police patrol, who initially took some convincing that I had not knocked the bloke down.
Finally got home long after midnight, the poor bugger did survive, broken legs, ribs and collapsed lung. His missus had returned screaming and crying and luckily was restrained by some of the pub crowd.
Not one of my quieter Friday nights. Spent the following day ferrying my mate around the cheap car places so he would have something for work on the Monday.
His idea of a cheap stop gap was different to mine, I was thinking a few hundred quid, he ended up spending £1500 on a Saab 900, the Rover never ran again.
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Re: Claim's Cabbies Corner. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Post by red5 »

panhard65 wrote: Wed Jul 21, 2021 7:54 pm 150k on a set of pads and discs is impressive. My other half ran a couple of cabs in the 80's and the cavalier 1.6d would do a set of pads in a week
Sounds like Hotline pads. £9 or something -made from Weetabix and brake dust.
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Re: Claim's Cabbies Corner. OMG! I'M GLAD YOU'RE WHITE

Post by Warren t claim »

mercrocker wrote: Mon Jul 19, 2021 10:12 pm For logistic reasons there are generally only two places I regularly use cabs - one is Weymouth the other is Luton. As can be expected, those in Luton are highly likely to be Asian driven, in fact the only White British ones tend to be on the outward journey to a gig if it starts in the afternoon. Not really had a bad experience with any of 'em but one which stands out was a youngish guy in a, yep, Prius who we got from the taxi office next to the venue after closing time.

Studying my drape suit as I got in (I always fold the jacket and give it to Mrs Rocker in the back seat) I plonked down in front and buckled up. "Been to funeral?" he asked. I usually get a bit tetchy about that but he genuinely had no idea about Edwardian Teddy Boy style. I gave him a brief rundown of the sub-culture and he immediately lightened up. "Check this out" he said and fiddled with the dash. A barrage of early Elvis crashed out of the speakers, the remaining Teds at the office counter stood chip-to-open-mouth and watched us glide away to Mystery Train.

Turned out he was a full-on Elvis nut, his father had been back in Bangladesh and he was delighted not to have to turn off his beloved download collection all the way back to the out-of-town hotel.

This reminds me of something that happened to me about a decade ago.

It was November 2011 and myself and Ex_Claim_Bird had phoned a taxi to take us from Sale in Manchester to Ashton Village so we could go for a curry at the Princess Of Hearts restaurant (well worth a visit if you are passing, even if the head waiter looks like Alister McGowan but with hairy ears) to celebrate our anniversary.

A Scotts Cars 05 plate Toyota Avensis driven by a friendly Asian turns up bang on time and we get in the back. During the three mile trip I notice that he's playing Boney M on the CD player and his eyes light up at the fact that I know the band! It turns out that he's South Manchester's biggest Boney M fan and insisted that we sing along to By The Rivers Of Babylon for the rest of the trip! He was very knowledgeable about the band and was keen to tell us his opinion about the member that was charged with attempted murder.

We were quite happy when on the return trip a surly Pakistani dude who spoke little English turned up to take us home in his Octavia automatic.
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Re: Claim's Cabbies Corner. AIRPORTS

Post by Warren t claim »

Here's a subject that I've only skirted around before so I'll take the opportunity to go into a bit more detail.

Airport transfers.

Some drivers hate them and some are happy to cut their own throat to do one.

Now, this is one subject that my learned colleague NorfolkNWeigh will be more savvy with than my good self but I'll offer my biased opinion anyway.

Is it worth grabbing as many airport jobs as you can?

Well, that depends on how you value your working day/night. From my area, Manchester Airport is on average a 90 mile round trip. So that means a driver is running empty (usually) for 45 miles. We charge £51 for a drop off and £52 for a pick up, this price is based on Manchester Airport charging us £4 to drop off and a fiver to pick up. Doing the maths means that we are doing a 45 mile journey for £47 when a normal £45 mile trip costs £76, hence why some drivers refuse to do them.

I look at them a different way. I see it as maybe an hour and forty minutes work for £47. Not a bad hourly rate. My Ioniq costs about £8 in fuel for the journey which is OK by me.

The holy grail is obviously having a pick up there after you've just dropped off but that only happens about four times a year.
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Re: Claim's Cabbies Corner. AIRPORTS

Post by Warren t claim »

So why don't Wirral residents just jump into one of the plethora of hacks plying for hire outside every airport terminal?

An easy answer to that question sir. A hack would charge £110 for a trip from the airport to Wirral!

This makes you wonder why aren't we charging a full rate £76 for the journey as that's still a substantial saving. Sadly, there are far too many one man bands out there who will do the trip for peanuts. We have a couple of local lads who'll drop you off and pick you up later for £78 plus parking.

So is there a middle ground? Yes, there is. Manchester Airport have their own "official and approved" private hire company. A firm called, believe it or not, Street Cars, like in Coronation Street! They'll happily take you back to the Wirral for £90 in a Corolla estate or a tenner more in an E Class.

The first PH firm granted the licence to work out of Man Air was a company called Checker Cars back in 2003. The airport hacks were fucking livid about their cosy cartel being under threat so lobbied the airport to revoke their operators licence as apparently the owner of Checker Cars has once got a conviction for walking on the cracks in the pavement back in 1973. Once the hack community had managed to get him and his fleet of Ford Galaxy's banned Street Cars took over the gig.

The Hacks are probably even more militant at Heathrow.

Technically Heathrow is out of the Central London area and a hack driver with a yellow suburban badge could rank up there but no fucking chance! The hack drivers with the all London Green badge have managed to keep the rank for themselves!

Now, as a Green Badge Heathrow hack could be waiting six hours for a job that only takes him to Hownslow you'd think that the common sense solution would be running two ranks, one for local jobs manned by Yellow Badge drivers and another into London Central operated by Green Badge lads. Sadly this common sense approach has been knocked back by the Green Badge lads.
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Re: Claim's Cabbies Corner. AIRPORTS

Post by brandersnatch »

Common sense and the London taxi driver are strangers. When motorcycle couriers first came about they were up in arms. Not because they wanted the parcel work but because they didn’t want anyone else doing it.
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